Thursday, March 30, 2017

About once a week, House Democrats try to force
President Donald Trump to release his tax returns, and about once a week House
Republicans stop them.

Republicans Tuesday blocked a Democratic resolution on
the House floor about the same time Republicans in the House Ways and Means Committee
defeated a similar Democratic effort.

But why?

Trump’s tax returns should not be a partisan issue –
and if their release becomes a long-running battle, both parties will lose. To
move ahead with his agenda, the president needs to release his returns now.

Most people want Trump to release his returns, polls
show. Plus, nearly 1.1 million people signed a petition on the White House web
site, calling for their release.

Many Republicans wish he had done so long ago, as his
predecessors did for the last 40 years.

It’s “disqualifying for a modern-day presidential
nominee to refuse” to release his returns, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt
Romney said during the campaign.

“Republican voters, GOP officials, and all Americans
should demand that Donald Trump release his tax returns, something he refuses
to do with the flimsiest of excuses,” National Review columnist John Fund wrote
a year ago.

If it was true then, why not now? Mainly because Trump
is in the White House and he doesn’t want to.

“What’s he got to hide?” asked Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.,
who has led the effort to force release under a 1924 law that allows Ways and
Means to obtain tax returns of executive branch officials.

With Trump about to start on tax reform, Democrats
rightly argue that people have a right to know the president’s financial
relationships and potential conflicts of interest. Republican House leaders counter
that forcing Trump to release his returns would jeopardize his individual civil
liberties and right to privacy.

Only two Republicans broke with their party – Reps.
Walter Jones of North Carolina and Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Others have
tried to have it both ways.

Constituents at a town hall meeting in February cheered
Rep. David Young, R-Iowa, when he said: “You run for president, you’re president,
you should release your tax returns. It’s a distraction and I think the
American people should know,” the AP reported.

In Washington, though, Young voted against the
measure. An aide dismissed the vote as a “partisan stunt.”

Trump initially said he couldn’t release his returns
because he’s under audit by the IRS, although it’s up to him. Later he said the
election proved people don’t care about his taxes.

That’s easy for him to say when people haven’t seen
them.

Trump’s refusal has gotten under Democrats’ skin. They
need to be wary, though, of casting theatrical show votes for their base, as House
Republicans did when they voted more than 60 times to repeal the Affordable
Care Act during the Obama years, none of which succeeded.

Hillary Clinton said of
Trump in a debate that “maybe he doesn’t want the American people – all of you
watching tonight – to know that he’s paid nothing in federal taxes.”

“That makes me smart,”
Trump shot back.

We got a glimpse of one year Trump paid taxes -- 2005.
Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative reporter Donald Cay Johnston received two
pages of the return anonymously by mail and went on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow
Show” March 14.

Trump paid about $38 million in taxes on $153 million
in income for an effective tax rate of 24 percent. Even though Trump tweeted the
reports were “FAKE NEWS,” the White House confirmed the numbers.

“Thank you Rachel Maddow for proving to your #Trump hating
followers how successful @realDonaldTrump is & that he paid $40mm in taxes!”
Donald Trump Jr. tweeted.

Trump and his wife Melania paid most of their income
tax as an alternative minimum tax, which taxpayers must pay in certain
circumstances if they claim many itemized deductions. Trump has called for
eliminating the AMT.

It should come as no surprise that Trump favors tax policies
that will help him and his supporters. More important is whether the policies
also benefit most taxpayers.

Republicans and Democrats should work together to
persuade -- or force – Trump to release his tax returns for the sake of trust
and transparency in government. The people deserve to know.

Thursday, March 23, 2017

One of the year’s biggest surprises so far is former
President George W. Bush’s success as a portrait painter.

His “Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief’s Tribute
to America’s Warriors” tops this week’s New York Times nonfiction bestseller
lists. The book contains 66 oil paintings and a four-panel mural of veterans as
well as their stories, written by Bush.

Unpopular when he left office, Bush has gained stature
in retirement by keeping a low profile and devoting himself to his art and humanitarian
causes. The book’s proceeds benefit Bush’s foundation that helps wounded
veterans.

Even former first lady Laura Bush was surprised by her
husband’s picking up paint brushes at age 66, four years ago. Had someone told
her when they married that one day she would write a foreword to a book
containing her husband’s paintings, Laura Bush writes, “I would have said, No
way.”

But long before he started painting and before he left
Texas for prep school and the Ivy League, Bush was a boy of 1950s America.

Just as “Portraits” presents the 43rd
president as a compassionate artist, the George W. Bush Childhood Home in
Midland, Texas, opens a window on a nostalgic view of American life and values in
the post-war era.

Docent Kay Manley, a retired oil and gas accountant,
gave me a tour earlier this month. As a girl, she attended the same Methodist
church and took piano and dancing classes with Laura Bush, a Midland native.

“Most people don’t realize the Bushes were such
ordinary people,” Manley said. “Barbara Bush made her own curtains.”

The modest house – a 1,400-square-foot bungalow with blue-gray
wood siding, three bedrooms, one bath and no central air -- was home to “two
presidents, two governors and one first lady,” Manley said. “No other house can
say that.”

Besides “W,” she was referring to former President
George H.W. Bush, first lady Barbara Bush and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush,
whose nursery was in the sun room. Neil Bush was also born while the family
lived in the house. Two other children came along later.

The house has been meticulously restored to the way it
looked when the Bushes lived there from 1951 to 1954. Georgie, as he was
called, did his homework on a small desk in his knotty pine-paneled bedroom, rode
his bike, played catcher on the Midland Cubs Little League team (his dad was manager),
was a Cub Scout (his mom was den mother) and went to the Presbyterian church on
Sundays.

Asked while running for
president his fondest childhood memory, Bush said: “Little League baseball in
Midland.”

The home avoids mentioning Bush’s policies and politics
– topics best left to the presidential libraries and museums, said Paul St.
Hilaire, director of the childhood home. Bush’s library and museum are in
Dallas.

“We’re a cultural and historic site,” he said.

Papa Bush was on his way up in the oil business, and his
young family was on the move. Young George, born in Connecticut while his dad
was in college, lived in at least 14 different homes in three states and eight
cities in his first 18 years, according to a National Park Service survey of the
home for inclusion in the park system.

He lived longest on Ohio Avenue, and Bush often refers
to the values he learned there. His childhood was also a time of sadness. His sister
Robin died at age 4 of leukemia while the family lived in the house.

The home is on the National Register of Historic
Places, one of the first 1950s residential restorations. The attention to detail is remarkable – not just the turquoise fridge
and TV with rabbit ears, vintage wallpaper and black dial phone but also period
door hinges. More than 70,000 people have visited
since it opened in 2006.

History buffs Lynn Hassler, 62, a retired teacher from
Pennsylvania, and her husband Randy stopped by while visiting their son and
grandchildren. She didn’t vote for W nor did she vote for Donald Trump. But
Trump’s election has caused Hassler to reassess Bush.

Thursday, March 16, 2017

You stand at the base of massive Santa Elena Canyon in
Big Bend National Park, and dip your toes in the placid Rio Grande. Mexico is but
a stone’s throw away.

Then you cast your eyes up and up and up. The rock
wall so sheer only birds can negotiate it rises 1,500 feet – the equivalent of
150 stories. The canyon stretches 50 miles in Mexico and 10 miles in the United
States.

“Looks like somebody already built a wall,” a
20-something visitor declared the other day. “Nobody could build a wall as good
as God’s wall.”

To see the park and Santa Elena Canyon is to
understand how a wall could ruin some of the most majestic scenery in the
United States.

Yet President Donald Trump plans to wall off about
2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border, 1,250 miles of it in Southwest Texas
along the Rio Grande. His budget proposes $1.5 billion to start on a project
that could cost more than $20 billion.

“Splendid isolation” is how the national park
describes its 800,000 rugged acres, as remote a place as any in the lower 48. It
has mountains, desert, canyons, wildlife, millions of stars in an obsidian sky
– and 118 miles of Rio Grande border.

About 300,000 people a year make the considerable effort to
go there. We flew from Washington to Dallas to Midland-Odessa, the closest airport.
It’s a 220-mile drive to the park, if you go directly. We meandered, stopping
at Alpine -- county seat of Brewster County, three times the size of Rhode
Island, bigger than Connecticut and less than 10,000 people – and other towns.

Trump talks about his wall as if all that matters is who’ll
pay for it. In the Big Bend region, you soon learn there’s so much more to his
project than pesos.

People elsewhere argue whether the wall is necessary.
In Big Bend, there’s no question natural barriers already exist. A manmade wall
or fence, even a mile from the river like the one already in Brownsville, would
mar Big Bend’s open landscape, protected as a national park since 1935.

From Presidio, a dusty,
dilapidated border town, we took Farm to Market 170, called the River Road, one
of the most beautiful stretches of highway anywhere. The road hugs the Rio
Grande, little wider than a stream in the current drought, with Mexico the
other bank, often less than 20 feet away.

Candidate Trump promised an “impenetrable, physical,
tall” wall. His fans cheered, but in the Big Bend, people worry. As for the
idea of an electrified and see-through wall that wouldn’t block the view?

“I think it’s . . . asinine,” said Evelyn Glaspie, 65,
of Fort Davis, one of the communities that relies on tourism. Asinine wasn’t
the first word she thought of, but it’ll do. “It makes no sense,” she said.

Rep. Will Hurd, the Republican who represents the Big
Bend, has 820 miles of border in his district, more than any other congressman.
He has called the wall “the most expensive and least effective way to secure
the border.”

At a hearing in Washington last month, Hurd showed
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly a picture of Santa Elena Canyon. He tried
to get Kelly to agree that the canyon was such an obstacle no wall was needed. Kelly
demurred, saying he needed to talk with the Border Patrol.

“Secretary of Homeland Security does not rule out
border wall in Big Bend National Park,” read the headline in the Big Bend
Gazette’s March issue.

Santa Elena is not the only formidable barrier. At the
Rio Grande overlook in the park, you can see equally intimidating rock walls
and cliffs as the river winds through Boquillas Canyon.

An interpretive sign calls attention to the “Wilderness
Without Boundaries.” Nothing in the sweeping landscape hints where one country
ends and one begins.

“The two countries also share the river environment, a
narrow oasis winding through the Chihuahuan Desert,” the sign says.

For now, they do – and in spectacular fashion. Let’s
hope that landscape will be protected, and not spoiled, by man.

Friday, March 3, 2017

President Donald Trump’s budget for the fiscal year
that begins in October likely will include a $54 billion hike in defense
spending and drastic cuts in the State Department and foreign aid to pay for it.

But it’s far from a sure thing. The president’s budget
is a proposal or starting point. Congress has the final word and will begin
work on the budget later this month.

Americans believe we spend too much on foreign aid,
polls show, although people have misconceptions about what’s called “soft
power” – humanitarian relief, economic development and anti-poverty programs,
among others.

2)Roughly
how much will the United States spend this year on foreign assistance?

A.$100.5
billion

B.$75
billion

C.$36.5
billion

D.$20
million

3)How
many countries around the world receive U.S. foreign aid?

A.50

B.75

C.More
than 100

D.More
than 200

4)Which
country receives the most foreign assistance from the United States?

A.Iraq

B.Afghanistan

C.Egypt

D.Israel

5)The
United States provides more foreign aid than any other nation. How much of the
world’s development assistance comes from the United States?

A.24
percent

B.30
percent

C.50
percent

D.65
percent

6)The
United States hasn’t always been the No. 1 donor. Which country provided more
foreign aid between the years of 1989 and 2001?

A.United
Arab Emirates

B.Japan

C.Saudi
Arabia

D.Qatar

7)Where
does the money go? Pick the largest program category.

A.Peace
and security

B.Humanitarian
assistance

C.Health

D.Economic
development

8)Where
else? Which of these smaller categories distributes the most money?

A.Environment

B.Education
and social services

C.Democracy,
human rights and governance

9)The
State Department and USAID are two of the federal agencies involved in foreign
aid. How many agencies in total provide foreign assistance?

A.10

B.20

C.25

10)Name that tweeter: “Foreign aid is not
charity. We must make sure it is well spent, but it is less than 1% of budget
& critical to our national security.”

A.Hillary
Clinton

B.Marco
Rubio

C.Barack
Obama

D.Mitt
Romney

ANSWERS:

1 1)D.Foreign assistance was 1.3 percent of federal
budget authority in fiscal 2015, the Congressional Research Service reported in
June. Americans’ average guess is 31 percent, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll
found last year. Only about three people in 100 knew foreign aid is about 1
percent.

2 2)C.
Tallies vary from $31.3 billion to $39.9 billion, depending on the kinds of
assistance included and how the calculations are made, according to PolitiFact.
The $36.5 billion figure comes from foreignassistance.gov, a federal site that
collects data from federal agencies involved in foreign aid.